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senzenwomen2024-08-16 08:24 pm
nnozomi) wrote in senzenwomen2024-08-16 08:24 pm
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Miyake Kaho (1868-1943)
Miyake Kaho was born in 1868 in Tokyo, originally named Tanabe Tatsu; her father was a teacher and language scholar who became a diplomat in the new Meiji administration. They were well-to-do and lived in Western style. Tatsu attended the newly established Atomi School for Girls, under its founder, Atomi Kakei, whom she admired.
When she was thirteen, however, her father’s libertine extravagance brought the family down in the world; they moved to a much smaller house and she left school to study alone at home. There she learned the Chinese and Japanese classics, traditional musical instruments, painting, and waka poetry. For the latter, she was sent to Nakajima Utako’s Haginoya school of poetry, where she studied alongside Higuchi Ichiyo.
In order to have Tatsu learn English, her mother also sent her to the Sakurai Girls’ School, where she studied with Yajima Kajiko (and was summarily pulled out by her offended mother when asked to bring Christmas presents to school), and later to the Meiji Girls’ School under Iwamoto Yoshiharu. She left the Meiji school likewise after a short time, upon the untimely death of her older brother Jiroichi, and in 1886 enrolled in the Tokyo Normal School for Women (later Ochanomizu University), where she spent three years, mastering English and gleefully attending school dances.
Tatsu had always been fond of writing, especially poetry. In 1887, sick in bed at home, she was given a copy of a novel by Tsubouchi Shoyo and found its natural rendition of student life very striking. “…I could do that,” she thought, and started writing her own. She was also motivated by the desire to earn money for a memorial service for her brother (although this may be a later justification on her part). The novel she wrote, Yabu no uguisu [Warbler in the Grove], was published (with some help from Tsubouchi and various family friends) to a positive reception, under the pen name of Kaho. The story of various young women facing marriage and schooling and the ensemble cast surrounding them, it brings in the same questions of Westernization and education for women that had marked Kaho’s life so far.
In 1892, Kaho married the journalist Miyake Setsurei. While her writing pace slowed after marrying and bearing five children (most of whom became or married eminent personages later on), she continued to produce numerous short stories and essays, mostly in the same vein of character sketches and examinations of the era as her debut work. She died in 1932.
Sources
Copland
When she was thirteen, however, her father’s libertine extravagance brought the family down in the world; they moved to a much smaller house and she left school to study alone at home. There she learned the Chinese and Japanese classics, traditional musical instruments, painting, and waka poetry. For the latter, she was sent to Nakajima Utako’s Haginoya school of poetry, where she studied alongside Higuchi Ichiyo.
In order to have Tatsu learn English, her mother also sent her to the Sakurai Girls’ School, where she studied with Yajima Kajiko (and was summarily pulled out by her offended mother when asked to bring Christmas presents to school), and later to the Meiji Girls’ School under Iwamoto Yoshiharu. She left the Meiji school likewise after a short time, upon the untimely death of her older brother Jiroichi, and in 1886 enrolled in the Tokyo Normal School for Women (later Ochanomizu University), where she spent three years, mastering English and gleefully attending school dances.
Tatsu had always been fond of writing, especially poetry. In 1887, sick in bed at home, she was given a copy of a novel by Tsubouchi Shoyo and found its natural rendition of student life very striking. “…I could do that,” she thought, and started writing her own. She was also motivated by the desire to earn money for a memorial service for her brother (although this may be a later justification on her part). The novel she wrote, Yabu no uguisu [Warbler in the Grove], was published (with some help from Tsubouchi and various family friends) to a positive reception, under the pen name of Kaho. The story of various young women facing marriage and schooling and the ensemble cast surrounding them, it brings in the same questions of Westernization and education for women that had marked Kaho’s life so far.
In 1892, Kaho married the journalist Miyake Setsurei. While her writing pace slowed after marrying and bearing five children (most of whom became or married eminent personages later on), she continued to produce numerous short stories and essays, mostly in the same vein of character sketches and examinations of the era as her debut work. She died in 1932.
Sources
Copland
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Warbler in the Grove update!
The story lacks the unifying perspective of a main protagonist, preferring multiple perspectives and dramatic sketches to the narrative strategies of character development and psychological realism that are usually identified with literary modernity. Readers will find that scenes unfold with a dramatic flourish reminiscent of Kabuki theater. [For me, it was reminiscent of silent Japanese movies I've seen, which is perhaps not dissimilar!] Information is often gained through eavesdropping, characters meet suddenly and under unlikely circumstances, and, most important, the narrative progression of the story is almost exclusively dependent on dialogue, which in the original is rendered in playscript style.
The translator (Rebecca L. Copeland) retained the playscript style in a few places but otherwise used embedded dialogue "to accommodate the sensibilities of modern readers." I didn't mind this, though it made me curious about what the original actually looked like.
The themes in the story are excessive Westernization, social responsibility, marriage, and education for women. There's not a particular plot, as such, but the story centers a group of young, educated people in overlapping social circles, and how they embrace or reject Westernization to varying degrees.
I can't resist quoting this excerpt of dialogue from a secondary character, Matsuko, the younger sister of Saitō, one of the male characters, and a friend and schoolmate of Namiko Hattori, one of the main female characters:
A little later on, Matsuko declares her intention of remaining single and becoming a painter. ♥
Translation from: Copeland, Rebecca L., and Melek Ortabasi (eds.). The modern Murasaki: writing by women of Meiji Japan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
Re: Warbler in the Grove update!